My CSS Menu is one of the coolest websites I've been to in a while. If you are in need of a nice looking CSS menu but don't know where or how to get started, or maybe just don't want to start from scratch then you are in luck; My CSS Menu is your answer.

You can currently choose from 22 different already designed for you CSS menus (I'm sure there are more on the way). They have very basic menus and very advanced menus and everything in between to meet all your needs. While all of these options are great to have it is not by far the best part of the site though. Once you decide on a menu type you have the ability to customize it to meet your exact needs including size, colors, animation effects, and more. This customization turns 22 options into an almost endless amount of different menus.

The CSS editor (see screenshot above) is very fast and easy to use. The GUI is well designed and intuitive. You can preview your changes, save changes, and import saved menus. You can use a designer mode, CSS mode, and HTML mode which feel and look a lot like Adobe Dreamweaver for those of you that are familiar with the product.

As a developer I have often wanted to be able to test query speeds among other things. The problem is I didn't always have a usable data set sitting around that could meet the requirements of my test cases. To make a long story short, I wish I had GenerateData.com a long time ago. This is a great tool and has a lot of potential. It can save a lot of time when you are trying to create your own test data set to work with.

GenerateData.com is currently in version 2.1 (released July 25, 2008) and offers a nice set of features. You can generate data in many different data types like addresses, numbers, lorem ipsum text, email addresses, phone numbers, and more. Once you have chosen what kind of data you would like to generate, you can choose from five different export options. You are able to export the data in XML, Excel, HTML, CSV and SQL formats. The SQL export options gives you the choice of MySQL or Oracle syntax. You can generate up to 200 records at a time, unless you donate $20 or more, which allows you to generate up to 5000 records at a time.

The generator is written using PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript. You can use the online version or download a copy of the script for use on your own server. The downloadable version is licensed under GNU. The website has requirements and installation instructions to follow if needed.

ColorJack offers three tools for easily creating color schemes. The front page shows new and popular schemes that have been created as well as linking to the three main tools, Color Galaxy, Color Sphere, and Color Studio. Along with providing these tools, there are links to other useful sites and tools, a blog, other software created by ColorJack, and articles that have some pretty cool information.

The Front Page

The front page displays the new and popular color schemes that have been created by other users. You can hover over each of the colors to see the whole scheme that was designed. It is a little confusing to understand at first, but the white spaces are breaks in between different color schemes. So when you hover over a color, it shows you the colors to the left and right of it as well (before the next and after the previous white space) to see what the colors look like together.

Color Galaxy

Color Galaxy allows you to pick from 27 color schemes and look at the makeup of that color. Some of the color schemes include crayola, mozilla, IE, Netscape, and Windows. Once you choose a color scheme it gets loaded into a "galaxy" arrangement and you can then pick one of the colors to examine. Clicking on a color will then load information describing it's makeup on the right. Personally I like the ven diagram that gets created to show the colors mixed together.

Color Sphere

Color Sphere offers color schemes based on a number of variables. It is displayed in a color picker format on the left as well as a list format on the right. You can apply a number of rules/filters to the colors to end up with your desired color scheme. Colors can be adjusted from the sphere on the left or the list on the right and new color schemes will be created dynamically. Some of the filters available are analogous, complimentary, triadic, and tetradic. You can also choose to see all colors in the spectrum, websmart colors, or websafe colors. You are also given the ability to export the color scheme for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

Color Studio

Color Studio is in my opinion the best part of the site. It offers information about a color selected as well as a palette for a color scheme. You can start with a color by entering the HEX code or picking one from a color picker. Once you have a color selected, you can start to apply filters and functions similar to those previously mentioned in the two apps above. You can also darken/lighten the color scheme, adjust the hue, saturation, and value of the colors, as well as add and remove additional colors to or from the palette. Like the Color Sphere, you can export the color scheme to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. You can also save it to Delicious, bookmark it in your browser, and get the direct link as a URL.

All three of these apps from ColorJack are worth checking out. If you like what they have to offer, you can check out more from their software page and read up on some color theory at their article and blog pages.